


But You Imagine Things

by americandy



Category: The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: By that I mean Nick loves Oscar Wilde, M/M, Not Beta Read, Oscar Wilde Loving, Sex Dreams, Slight Alternate Universe?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americandy/pseuds/americandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick has had enough of Gatsby mooning on about Daisy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Harlot's House, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Oscar Wilde's many aphorisms mentioned. Title from Ra Ra Riot's "The Orchard", inspiration taken from a mess of Ra Ra Riot over the weekend.

Nick is over at Jay’s the morning after one of his parties. They’re sitting on a chaise lounge that made its way outside by the pool, sipping mimosas and gazing into the hall where the help is slowly cleaning up the detritus from the night before. Jay isn’t dressed and pressed to perfection yet, he’s in blue silk pajama pants and a purple velvet bathrobe that he hasn’t bothered to tie shut. His golden chest looks good in early morning light, and so does the rest of him, really. Jay’s features aren’t touched by his lifestyle, but his eyes occasionally betray how tired he is. This is one of those times.

“Sometimes I forget why I throw these things… why I invite all of these terrible people over.” Nick has to snort at this.

“Are they really so terrible? Why fault people for wanting to have a good time?”

Jay finishes his mimosa and holds his empty champagne flute up until someone takes it and replaces it with a new one, filled to the brim with Veuve Cliquot and orange juice. Nick is on his second, and he’s not drunk yet, but he’s starting to feel loose, and a warm sensation has curled itself up in his throat.

“I don’t fault them for wanting to have a good time, that’s not it at all. Every party is the same, they drink and dance and smoke and laugh and leave only to come back the next night. These people remind me of a poem I read once, The Harlot’s House by Wilde. The way he described the people he saw was so grotesque that I thought he was being vulgar, but now I understand.”

Nick perked up at the reference.

“Oscar Wilde? I wouldn’t have guessed that you had read him. I’m familiar with that particular poem; he called them horrible marionettes and wire-pulled automatons… Grotesque is the perfect word for it. You think your revelers are so depthless?” At this point, Jay turned to him, a look of incredulity in his eyes and a flush barely visible across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“Nick, please don’t be dense. It’s too early and I don’t need that from you. Not _once_ have I been addressed by any guest I haven’t previously known, and the ones who do speak to me string together sentences made out of candy floss. When they ask how I am, they don’t listen to the answer, and they certainly don’t want to hear that things aren’t well. They like me as Gatsby, the exuberant host, king of the castle, man of excess and grandeur! Interacting with them is like speaking with children who’ve come to see Saint Nick.” Nick’s mouth fell open a little bit. Jay did a magnificent job of hiding the way he felt. It was a fact that Jay was beautiful like a film star, but Nick was surprised he had the acting skills to match. Nick was also surprised this is what perturbs Jay about his guests.

“Good God, Jay, I had no idea you felt this way. What an extraordinary performance to put on more nights than not. You deserve a bouquet on your vanity!”

Jay’s head fell back against the back of the chaise lounge so he was looking up at the blue sky marked by clouds. He closes his eyes and presses his thumb and forefinger into them for a beat.

“It’s worth it, it will all be worth it, it has to be.” It might be Nick’s state of intoxication, or maybe Gatsby’s, but it doesn’t quite sound like he’s confident in those words. What Nick says next is definitely due to the drunkenness he is cultivating this morning.

“You say that, but she’s no different from these so-called grotesques your poignant diatribe focused on. She’s no different at all.” Jay stood up immediately, almost violently, and he looked at Nick with disgust written across his face, his lip curled up. The emotion seemed so out of place on Jay’s face; so unlike the man Nick was fond of.

“Jesus, Nick, how can you say something like that? She’s your own goddamn cousin.”

As he stood up to match Jay, eye to eye, he noticed their reflections in the pool. This is how it felt, like they were skewed versions of themselves in an alternate lurid blue-green universe where Nick did things to upset Jay and Jay looked at Nick with actual hate in his eyes. He downed the rest of his mimosa and threw the glass into his watery countenance. He made sure to look Gatsby in the eye; it was like looking down the barrel of a gun. Time to pull the trigger.

“I can say something like that because she’s my cousin, Jay. Daisy is so charming, incredibly charming, but that is all she is. ‘They string together sentences made of candy floss’, that’s what you said, Jay. Have you heard her speak? Also, the people you associate with now don’t want you to be anything but a man of excess and grandeur, but neither does Daisy. She cut you out of her life because you had nothing, for god’s sake. She married another man while you were out becoming who you pretend to be now. She talks to you because of the way you pretend. Now you have a shiny new finish, you can fit right into her collection of friends like baubles on a mahogany shelf. When you talk of people who don’t want to hear anything but inane chatter, who certainly don’t want to hear things aren’t going well, you can’t be so blind as to not realize she’s one of them!”

Nick’s voice was raised, and immediately he felt badly, it wasn’t his place to say but he couldn’t watch this farce go on. Jay had looked away as he’d gone on and on, staring at the flute at the bottom of the pool. He wouldn’t look at Nick, and he didn’t when he spoke, either.

“She was scared, Nick, she’s so scared. Ruled by her fear. Tom is an awful man and he has a power over her that’s pure evil. She couldn’t wait for me… She couldn’t marry the man I was, someone without anything at all. She deserves so much and I couldn’t give it to her but I can now and that’s what matters. It’s all that matters.” His voice was quiet and he sounded so fragile it scared Nick a little bit. Gatsby was resilient and sanguine and in that moment he was neither of those things. He was pretending to be and it was a bad act.

When Nick spoke this time, he did so gently.

“I knew her and Tom at college, Jay. She loved him when she met him; she forgot about you. Their wedding was beautiful and they have kids, Jay. She moved on. Tom is a bad man but she loves him. She’s not as fearful as you think.”

Jay still wouldn’t look at him. He raised a hand to his hair, smoothing it out.

“I think you’d better go, Nick.” His voice sounded tattered, like he was on the edge of something very bad.

“If you can’t see that about Daisy, then you’re just like your esteemed guests. Different from the man I thought you were, sure, but not from them.” Nick paused a moment and then he did go, down the steps from the pool area to the courtyard, across the courtyard and across the actual yard, through a row of trees, and back to his home.

He didn’t know what thing had snapped inside of him. The angry, petty thing that had prompted him into a tirade like that. He was shivering deep inside because of what must have been adrenaline. He sat on his couch and a feeling of dread crept up his back over the thought that he’d said the words that would have Gatsby out of his life forever. He cared for him so much it was almost an impediment, an impossible piece of his soul devoted to that smile in his direction, an arm clad in a pastel suit’s sleeve slung over his shoulder.

He could write about Jay, he had so many words for him, ideas and thoughts and phrases he’d strung together over the past few months. They had the greatest of times together, champagne afternoons and gin nights that bled easily into each other. When it was just Jay and himself, it was divinity.

He had these dreams every so often that he didn’t like to think about. He and Jay were on the private beach they’d gone to a few weeks ago, the place where white sand met dark blue water and the coastline was just a beautiful idea on the horizon. They were alone and they had a ridiculous blanket spread out and an even more ridiculous meal spread out between them, little sandwiches and petit fours and fruit and whiskey in cut crystal glasses. The day was warm and lovely and so was Jay, laid out in the sun, and Nick couldn’t help himself from crawling through everything, laughing as he smashed a little cake with his knee, over to Jay. He looked down at his face and studied the way the sunglasses Jay was wearing were making his tan seem deeper and his mouth pinker before taking them off. Jay squinted, one eye closed, but he smiled as Nick’s hand came to cup his jaw. Both of his eyes closed when Nick leaned down to kiss him, and his lips parted with Nick’s. He pulled back from Jay a little bit and Jay raised himself up so he was leaning back on one arm so that he could come up to meet Nick’s kiss with more ease, and his other hand was on Nick’s bicep, and then the center of his chest, and then a little to the left.

Nick always woke up sweating when he had these dreams, and always when Jay put his hand over Nick’s heart. It was ridiculous that his subconscious concocted this situation as some sort of saccharine romantic fantasy, but that didn’t stop him from slowly working himself over as he imagined the way it would continue, imagined that it was Jay’s hand on his cock instead of his own. He thought about all of the places he wanted to put his mouth, graze his teeth over Jay’s neck and lick and kiss down his chest, looking up at the ground he’s covered, Jay flushed pink across his cheeks like Nick had never seen before.

He couldn’t let his mind wander there now though, what an insolent thing to do in the face of the fate that he might not even speak to Jay again. Of course he’d never have him in his life in the capacity he dreamt of, but to think of not seeing him at all made Nick feel ill.

He wasn’t drunk enough to deal with what he’d just done, not nearly. He had half a bottle of Tanqueray left and this delightful mint syrup that made the juniper of the gin taste more floral. He drank one gin and mint tonic after the other until his eyes moved lazily and everything was just kind of funny.

Really, he didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. Is it crueler to tell the truth or to support a lie? Jay has Daisy built up to be some sort of fucking dream and she’s not, she’s common beyond belief but god, she is charming. Nick supposes he doesn’t have much room to talk; he doesn’t even have charm on his side.

He pictures the way Jay’s face looked when he was saying those things earlier today, and the pallor that wouldn’t have been noticeable to someone who didn’t spend a lot of time with him. His words got to Gatsby. He cares enough about what Nick has to say that it affects him. Visibly. Sometimes when he was drunk like this he thought Gatsby might feel the way he does in return.

There have been certain moments where something else is palpable. Some undercurrent that feels less like friendship and more like… Nick couldn’t name the feeling. It was something he was familiar with, but also very different from what he knew, because in this particular equation the variable was Gatsby and of course, that changes everything.

Nick first encounters this sensation when Jay is being persuasive.

He wants Nick to come with him somewhere, meet an old pal who’s sure to flesh out more details of the marvelous history of Jay Gatsby. Nick resists, sighting his upcoming deadline for sales as a reason for declining. This simply won’t do, Jay persists, a hand gripping Nick’s forearm over his forest-green sweater, he steps closer and lowers his voice.

“Come on, old sport, it’ll be a wonderful time. I’ll have the gin you like and a new bread I’ve just had flown in from Switzerland along with a chef, you dip it into melted chocolate and it’s supposed to be divine.” Jay’s hand rotates so he’s grabbing the inside of Nick’s wrist, but he doesn’t acknowledge the movement, and so Nick doesn’t either.

“What kind of chocolate?” Nick enquires, his resolve waning, feeling warn down this close to Gatsby.

He smells a little like roses and a lot like the wind they’ve been driving through all day.

 “Any kind you’d like.” He punctuates his statement with a smile that spreads like warm butter. Nick finds himself mirroring Jay’s smile; he doesn’t quite know why, it’s another thing he can’t help. He looks down at the way Jay is holding his wrist still, like a point of contention.

“I don’t see why I can’t just catch up with my clients the day after.” Jay’s hand drops from where it is on Nick’s wrist, his fingertips brush the rest of Nick’s hand as it falls to his side.

“Wonderful.” His smile is blinding.

That was the first time. Recently, it’s gotten a great deal more intense.

These days, Nick and Jay are the kind of friends – the kind of men – who can get stinking drunk together. It’s a delightful way to pass a sun-drenched afternoon. They laugh at the same things when they drink whiskey together, and Jay never talks about Daisy when he and Nick are half a bottle down and arranging a game of cards or at dinner in the city or watching a tragic opera or play. They like to go to shows after they’ve been drinking, it’s a good frame of mind to be in to absorb the events as they unfold on stage.

The heroine of the tale, a bookish girl with a daring side and the rakish and beautiful leading man embrace and kiss deeply on stage. Nick looks away from them and at Gatsby’s face next to him, watching in earnest, his eyebrow raised and his lower lip bitten in what has to be empathy. This kiss has been a long time coming; it’s good to see resolution.

He watches Jay’s profile somewhat doggedly. It’s hard to stare straight at the curve of his lips and his eyes and everything all at once. He’s very drunk.

After the show, Nick and Jay are shuffled into the backseat of a car by a driver and off to Gatsby’s they go. They’re sitting on opposite sides of the car, looking out the windows, until Jay turns to Nick, a small smile on his face.

“Saw you watching me during the kiss, Nick.” Nick can’t think about this right now. He can’t do anything but watch the lights of the city rush by.

“Did you,” he says, because there’s no reason for it to be a question between them anymore.

“Yes, I did, Carraway. I was thinking about you, while you were looking at me, hovering out of the corner of my eye.” This, Nick knew needed to hear about.

“Sorry about that, what were you thinking?” He turned so he was facing forward, not at Gatsby yet but he could see him out of the corner of his own eye now. When he thinks about the way they reflect each other sometimes it’s overwhelming.

“I was thinking about why I’ve never seen you kiss anyone like that before. You and Jordan seemed so appropriate together, but you kiss like cousins. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of raw intention in you, Nick Carraway, if you know what I mean.”

Nick turns to Jay very deliberately at this point. He has a very deliberate point to make.

“You’ve never seen me with the right person. Just because your eyes haven’t graced it doesn’t mean I don’t have it in me, Jay.”

Jay holds his gaze for a moment and the air feels so thick for that moment but then he’s looking away and so is Nick.

“I didn’t say that, old sport. I think we need a nightcap when we get back, don’t you?”

He had agreed, because that’s what he always does, and the condition of the air between them had slowly diffused until it felt like nothing had happened between them at all.

Nick remembered these moments and others like it as though they were dreams, and he questioned the legitimacy of some of them. Damn that drinking turned memories into glossy bubbles of experience.

He spends the day reading Oscar Wilde in his inebriated state, and he writes lines down that seem important for reasons that are made of a man made in gold.

The lines that resonate with him the most are probably unsurprising: “the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold, the curves of your lips rewrite history.” Now, Nick Carraway has been a fan of Oscar Wilde since he was entering the realm of the teen age and needed someone with lavender sensibilities to latch onto. Because of this, he’s seen photos of the boy Oscar wrote everything for and about, the one he fell for and went to jail for. Lord Alfred Douglas, affectionately known as Bosie.

Bosie does fit the description of these lines at a bare minimum, and he and Gatsby could be blood relatives. The thing that gets Nick up in arms is the way Bosie looks a little rude, like the unkind thoughts he had were visible in the way he held himself. This is no quality for someone who’s responsible for changing the world to have, and that’s why Jay Gatsby is a better candidate. He looks like the gods all smiled at once and in that moment he was borne, created in the sunlight of their happiness. Jay is a man who could be everything, anything he wanted to be. He thinks of another saying by Wilde, “Those whom the gods love grow young”. He thinks that’s truer of Gatsby than anything else.

God, he feels for Oscar Wilde. Thrown in jail for being romantic over someone who doesn’t even truly deserve it… Bosie went on to denounce Oscar and marry a woman and have children. Traitor. He wonders if his situation is entirely comparable… If Jay will never talk to him again and continue to pursue his cousin and eventually marry her and go down that path.

That fate is a sobering thought. Maybe Jay just goes on with the pursuit, cutting Nick out of his life like he was never there in the first place. This fate is sobering but, hope against hope, it doesn’t feel realistic. Nick can’t have felt everything that he has for this to be the end, before there’s ever a true beginning. At the very least, Jay can’t cut him out because Daisy will think it queer that he’s shunning her cousin. Family ties have never been something he’s had to be thankful for up until this point.

He passes out thinking about how these coming days will go and how this problem will resolve. Jay needs him, he thinks. He’s right.

He wakes up in the morning in his bathtub. He doesn’t remember coming into his bathroom but it’s not the first time he’s done this while drunk… his drunk self is drawn there because of the cool porcelain. It feels good against his skin and he never wakes up sweating there.

Upon waking, his hangover grasps him cruelly by his temples and he vomits before he can leave. He brushes his teeth and exits the room. It’s one in the afternoon, he finds out. The sun is shining brightly through the windows of his sitting room and he decides to step outside onto his porch.

He opens his front door after some effort with the lock, he isn’t concentrating on anything and he’s maybe still a little drunk, but he sees the small cream envelope that’s lying in front of his doorway immediately. It’s just like the one Jay sent him that held the invitation within… he can’t imagine what it contains this time.

There’s no name or address on the front of the envelope this time, none of the grace or care Jay had worked to bestow last time. He rips the top seam of it open and pulls out the folded piece of paper inside. It’s a sheet from Jay’s monogrammed stash of note paper. He opens it up to find three words written inside, not in practiced cursive but messy script: “dinner at seven”.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so so so long! excerpt at the beginning from 'continuum' by young & sick.

 

> _please keep the faith_  
>  _and keep it safe_  
>  _feed me light and keep me brave_  
>  _don't let me go, keep what you own_  
> 

Jay Gatsby was a man who got what he wanted. Jay Gatsby was a man who knew what he wanted, too. He was certain of what he wanted. Beautiful, breakable Daisy Buchanan. He was certain he wanted her… until Nick Carraway. He was both the key to her kingdom and the satyr come to lead him astray.

Knowing him had been easy, it had been wonderful; they were men who understood each other. Nick was slightly verklempt at Jay’s desire to meet with Daisy – be with Daisy – but he awkwardly facilitated their reunion anyway. Nick enjoyed Jay for his passion, beauty, and romance. He was Nick’s favorite work of art and he knew it, taking pleasure in the unbridled devotion that consumed his features when Jay threw an arm around his shoulders or let his fingers linger over Nick’s own. He took moments to indulge Nick and he was rewarded with wonderful words, uncompromised support, and honest, sweet smiles. Things had been some sort of hazy perfect… until a few days ago.

After a roaring soiree -- one that all of the papers would go on to call a decadent and scandalous event – the blue light of the breaking day had found them situated on a loveseat in front of the swimming pool, mimosas in hand. Jay had made an offhanded remark about how vapid his guests had been when Nick exploded into a tirade regarding his efforts to attain Daisy, and Daisy herself, really, that had been quite vulgar.

Jay was deep into his drunk when it occurred, so he assumed Nick must have been too, and initially he excused the rant. After Nick had quite finished, he told him how Daisy was just scared, and that it would all work out in the end. Usually, saying things in a tone of mild finality was enough to shut Nick up. He didn’t like to upset Jay and usually, once Nick was made aware of how his words or actions were negatively affecting him, he stopped the behavior quickly. This time was different.

Nick carried on, cutting right to the bone, right down the middle of Jay’s heart. She loved Tom, Nick had said. She wasn’t scared, she was comfortable. She wouldn’t upend her life for a man who had taken ages to make himself worthy of her, not when she had someone who was well-known, respected, and wealthy with old money (family money, good breeding) like Tom.

Jay felt like he was going to lose the contents of his stomach when he heard Nick, the champagne and strawberries and chocolates and orange juice combining into a vile soup that rose in his throat. He had to use every inch of himself to avoid vomiting and ask Nick to leave. Nick looked like the last thing he wanted to do was leave, and that he had a hundred other things to say to Jay, but he wasn’t ready to hear them yet.

It hurt so much because Jay trusted Nick, trusted him with his real life and all of his secrets and shortcomings. Nick was always careful with Jay, like the bond they had was made of bone china and his deepest concern was preserving it. The sudden turnabout in treatment made it clear that this was a long time coming… Nick wouldn’t have upset the balance without good reason.

And maybe, just maybe, in his heart of hearts, Jay had some idea that pursuing Daisy was a fool’s errand. It shouldn’t matter though; he should be free to take on whatever follies he likes. Loving Daisy was so easy. It was something he had been doing since he was a young man, the way Nick was with smoking. The habit still exists because it’s easier to keep than break. Nick looked like a whole different kind of man behind a trail of smoke, anyway. Like maybe he was the dangerous and beautiful one.

Nick would never know about the way Jay thought of him, not as long as Jay could help it. He had a queer sort of affection for the man, which was something he could make no bones about. Whenever Nick got them both to drink gin, which he did frequently, the perseverant bastard, Jay found warm flowers of desire blooming in the sun of his stomach. Having Nick around was like a dance with the devil, always in danger of giving in and burning up. A little bit of both Icarus and the sun, he entertained these vague delicacies of their relationship from time to time. He learned the way he could make Nick’s voice falter with the brush of an intimate fingertip or draw pale roses to his cheeks with an incidental press of their bodies at a crowded party.

There were times when things were decidedly murkier than would be considered appropriate. A day at the private beach feels like it could be the perfect forever and for a little while the green light is eclipsed. Nick exists entirely in the space Daisy occupied for a few hours and everything is easy for Jay, finally, for once. They drink and eat and play blackjack on a blanket and greedily soak up the summer sun and each other. Jay doesn’t hold back his laughter or his jaded humor and Nick is the way Nick always is, quiet and kind and appreciative of every single second. He might be Nick’s first love, maybe his _only_ love.

They spent too much time together, too much time for the kind of hues and shades and shapes and sizes their relationship takes on. However, when Jay is with Nick, it’s easier to not be with Daisy. His presence satisfies her absence, cousin for cousin. However, Jay is a goal-oriented man, and Daisy has been his goal for too long to give up.

He felt ill after sending Nick away, steeped in the sourness of the exclamations that lingered in the air long after he left. “If _you can’t see that about Daisy, then you’re just like your esteemed guests. Different from the man I thought you were, sure, but not them._ ”

The implication that he was a dullard, unable to sense Daisy’s complacency and discomfort, made Jay somewhat angry. Nick knew well enough that he wasn’t one of those types. He’d only drawn the parallel for the purpose of trying to rile Jay up… and it had worked. He hated the idea of Nick holding him in anything less than the highest esteem, and if he kept chasing Daisy’s scent on the wind, he was sure that would happen.

Nick wasn’t coming from a place of piety or morality; he was not a priest that Jay had to worry about coming off like a practicing catholic to. Nick was just an honest man, with an honest affinity. Jay could tell he was unequivocally and purely good, someone whose soul hasn’t been tied down to a destiny or tainted with desperation.

As Jay prepared himself for bed, he asked a manservant to prepare him a strong mint julep for the purposes of shuffling the uncomfortable thoughts out of existence. Keep Nick, keep chasing Daisy, keep throwing parties and having vapid conversations, keep chasing happiness without attaining it. The cool slide of satin pajama pants on his legs was the first sensation to divide him from his train of thought, the smell of the mint coming from the cut glass on the silver tray the butler behind him held was the second. Third, and finally, the warm burn of the bourbon and the julep down the center of his throat put the whole thing out of his mind quite easily.

Jay Gatsby slept for a long time. First, he slept a deep black dreamless sleep; the sleep of a passed out drunk, but then his subconscious intervened. Out of the dark stepped one Nick Carraway, looking somber in a crisp suit, motioning for Jay to follow him. Unable to do anything else, uncertain he would ever want to do anything else, that’s exactly what he did. The darkness swirled into being, a scene in Tom and Daisy’s dining hall. The peach-colored walls glow in the sun of the morning, Tom and Daisy and their little girl are sat at the oak table that runs the length of the room. They’re eating a breakfast fit for champions, eggs and toast and steak and yogurt and crepes and pancakes and a nanny is taking care of the child and Tom and Daisy are laughing, talking about the upcoming Italian vacation.  Daisy smiles when she looks at the world around her, the golden curtains from Turkey that hang from the floor to ceiling windows, the pearls that hang from her delicate wrist: all she’s ever wanted.

Suddenly, the scene turns bizarre, and the sound travels far away, and tables and chairs and everyone except Nick melt away into a gray fog. It looks like there’s still a beam of sunlight on his face though, and he looks healthy instead of sallow, the way he looks on the days when Jay comes to him in a bad way over Daisy. He only gets to look at Nick for a few seconds longer, because the gray swallows him up too. Just before he goes into the gray, Jay sees a faint smile cross his face. This was the Nick Carraway he preferred, the one he had such a delicate fondness for. Not that awful man who had yelled at him over Daisy.

Jay had absolutely never seen Nick in a state like that, so impassioned and raw. Upon waking, he rang for Jordan Baker. She would understand the situation, she and Nick seemed to be siblings separated at birth. The bond they had was a friendship borne out of a faulty attempt at romance, and it was incredibly strong. Jay supposed that the reason they did not work as lovers was the fact that they were too like family.

Jordan agreed to come over at once; she had been up all night off of a wonderful new sort of powder that had been given to her in a lovely jewel encrusted case.

“Oh, Jay, it’s the best thing I’ve ever had. Shall I bring some round for you? Just a little sniff and it’s off to the races!” She exclaimed rather loudly. Jay couldn’t help but chuckle at her enthusiasm.

“Maybe another time, Jordan. Meyer has spoke of something similar too, said the Germans cooked it up a little while back. I don’t have much interest in feeling like ‘my heart is a speeding train’, as he had described it. I’ll see you soon though, alright dear?”

“Whatever you say, Gatsby. I just wanted to have a little fun. I’ll be there quick as a whip!”

Before Jay could say goodbye, Jordan set the phone back down.

He paced while he waited for her, unable to sit down or eat, both because of nervousness and a creeping nausea. He was accustomed to glossing over the way his actions affected other people. One cannot create a large sum of wealth in _such_ an abridged period of time without becoming slightly ruthless. For a reason he couldn’t explain or put a name on, not quite yet, he was troubled by the change he had caused in Nick.

Someone like Nick was rare in the world. Kind, honest, captivating with his words not out of a gift of storytelling but the way he crafted his statements, as though he were doling out pieces of himself he would never get back. Each word chosen carefully, spoken with intention and heart. Nick was regularly spot on when it came to Jay; he had been a quick study in the truth behind the façade. Jay did not feel the extreme need to be the man he had created when he was with Nick. He could drop the pretense that sometimes became quite unbearable to continuously uphold. He had the inescapable feeling that Nick would have liked him just the same had he met him as James rather than Jay.

Both his pacing and his thoughts were interrupted when a doorman stepped into the room to announce Jordan Baker’s arrival.

“Miss Jordan Baker, sir.” He said primly.

“Oh please, I’m right behind you; he can see me with his eyes. No more of that nonsense.”

A smile crept over Jay’s mouth as it often did when Jordan was brash. He appreciated that she was volatile, unafraid to speak her mind or lash out. He wished Daisy had some of her audacity at times, but then she wouldn’t be the woman he loved, would she.

“Jordan, darling, I’m so glad you’ve come to see me. Would you like a drink? A snack? I’ve just had escargot imported directly from France, these tiny little petit-gris that taste as heavenly as the light of a full moon.”

Jordan slung an arm around Jay for a short second and then draped herself over one of his lounge chairs.

“No dear, thank you, I’ve got quite enough in my system at the moment. As for the snack, I don’t think consuming snails will ever be anything other than ghoulish to me. Let’s get to the matter at hand before I go to sleep for the next twenty years, alright? I feel a crash coming on.”

She spoke coolly but not cruelly, self-important without being a conceited terror. Jay didn’t mind getting to the point of things one bit.

“Yes, of course. Nick and I were together after a party, the way we often end up, and I made a few statements about the fiber of the people who attend my parties. They’re quite spacey and superficial. Nick was surprised about my sentiments toward my guests because, according to him, Daisy is just the same. He yelled at me about chasing her relentlessly because she’s ‘made of just the same stuff’”, Jay said, rolling his eyes as he repeated Nick’s words.

Jordan rolled from her back onto her side, so she could look away from the ceiling and at Jay.

“Now, when you say yell, what do you mean? A slightly loud exclamation? Nick Carraway does not _yell_ , in the traditional sense of the word.”

Jay crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows.

“Well, he yelled at me. I could get Jameston in here to provide an eyewitness account if you like, he had been in the process of serving us mimosas. Nick yelled at me so intensively that I made him leave, Jordan. We’re currently not on speaking terms.”

Jordan shifted back onto her back. It would be easier to explain what was going on to the painted ceiling than Jay himself.

“Oh, Jay. Little Nicky sees you through the rosiest of glasses on a regular day, or what he thinks of as a regular day, when you and he are off gallivanting and drinking or seeing shows or traveling or whatever it is you get up to. He thinks you are a god among humans, and I don’t even think I need to tell you that. Our Nick doesn’t hide his feelings well, but frequently that simply means drinking gin until blackout and crying about Oscar Wilde. It almost always follows some sort of quest the two of you go on in the hopes of snatching Daisy out of Tom’s clutches. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Jay considered Jordan’s words. He understood that Nick had particular feelings for him. They had spoken about it a few times, when the world was on its side and they were making dreams instead of memories, having found their way from neck to bottom of a few bottles of champagne. This was a common occurrence, Jay had nothing on his mind but the gal on the other side of the green light and Nick was pleased as punch to accompany him in whichever way distraction pulled him on a particular day. More often than not, that involved some kind of imbuement.

Nick stared freely at Jay when he was drunk, memorizing the lines of his features and the tan of his skin and the cut of his jaw. Jay was so used to turning his head slightly to be met by Nick’s glittering and dark eyes studying his profile. It used to turn his stomach, not unpleasantly, just differently than anything he had ever experienced. He wondered about the way Nick watched him until he asked why, one day at sunset, when they were both drenched in the gold of the dying sun that was reflected off of the sound.

“Why do you look at me the way that you do, Nick Carraway?” Jay asked him. They were lying on the dock, dressed in the white outfits he had bought for them earlier that day before their trip to the beach. They lay side by side on a great velour throw, positioned in a way that Nick’s head was a little above Gatsby’s and he had to look down his side to answer. He shifted from his back to his side, up onto his elbow, in order to better respond to Jay.

“And what way do you think I look at you, Jay Gatsby?” He asked with a small smile. Anything Jay notices about him makes him smile.

“That’s a hard thing to put my finger on. Sometimes I think it’s like a man who’s studying for an exam, or a prospector who has found a diamond. Then there are other times it seems to venture into territory that I am not quite sure how to address.” Jay’s words were easy, like everything else about him. Nick wasn’t looking at him now, though, he was staring off into the sun as it vanished.

“Jay, I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m something of a writer. This level of honesty might be unbecoming to you, but back in Chicago, things could get bleak. Destined to follow the same path as my father, breezing through course work at a supposedly competitive high school with few friends to lean on, I escaped into the worlds I could create through my words. I stare at you, Jay Gatsby, because you are the kind of character I have dreamt of creating since I knew I could construct a story. Stunning, if I may say so, determined, compelled by the veracity of love – you’re like poetry to me. Imagine Bach or Beethoven hearing a magnificent symphony. That is why I stare at you, that is why I could spend every day of my life with you. You are the most divine creation, and I wish you could have come from my pen, my hand and my brain, but you walked into my life before I had the chance.”

The words Nick had for him were beautiful. Jay thought about writing them down, to keep for rainy days and times when he felt like he belonged at the bottom of the ocean, but there was no sense in it. Nick was always capable of offering up more if Jay so much as hinted he was in a morose way.

“Well, Jordan, he has explained it to me before. Some sort of artist’s muse fascination. I never considered myself worth anything of the sort, but his adoration is unwavering.”

Jordan scoffed and sat straight up on the lounge.

“Jay Gatsby, you are a fool. Our little Nicky has much stronger feelings for you, the kind you harbor for Daisy. He knows how foolish his affections are, he laments them constantly, drinks about you constantly, but carries on with them anyway. He’s become the _biggest_ bore to go out with.”

Jordan held eye contact with him as she told him the truth, and he appreciated her for it, because he felt the magnitude of her words down to his very core. He stopped short in his tracks, paused for a second, the air he’d been breathing in caught somewhere between his throat and his stomach. He braced himself on the back of the lounge and stared at the pattern of the tiling on the floor as he tried to catch his breath. He heard Jordan sigh at him.

“Oh, come and sit next to me. You aren’t going to vomit, are you?” Jordan Baker was full of surprises. Jay never would have thought she would express an ounce of care toward him, let alone carry on as a counsel for Nick’s emotional tribulations. Shaky, he came around the cream-colored couch and sat down next to her.

“No, my stomach is not the issue at this point. I wish that I could say I had no idea about Nick, but I truly had some inclination. He had described his ardor as falling under the umbrella of artistic inspiration, something that required me to pay no mind or attention, let alone consider for reciprocation.”

Jordan’s eyes widened in surprise.

“That would be… something that you _would_ consider? Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan’s long lost paramour, could perhaps brew affection for a different human being? A _man_? A sad writer from Illinois? Well, shock and awe.”

Jay let out a bark of a laugh.

“I _knew_ care and concern was not a shawl you could wear on your slender shoulders for long. I don’t know, Jordan, I really have no idea. I know I feel bad for the way I have been with Nick, actively using him to get to Daisy. I am quite shocked he’s helped me as much as he has… How horrible to have to completely disregard one’s feelings like that. Oh Jordan, what should I do? I kicked him out. I made him leave.” He leaned back heavily against the lounge as Jordan got up, opening her silver clutch to search for something inside of it. She found her cigarette case and procured a single one.

“You are living proof that one doesn’t need to have a great deal of intelligence to accumulate a large sum of money. Drop the act, Jay. All of it. Invite him over and have a talk, man to man. Let the cards fall where they may. Listen to me or don’t, I don’t really care. I need a nap, so I’m going to go now. Do you have a lighter nearby?”

Jay stood and crossed the room to the mahogany desk pressed against the wall. He opened one of the drawers and removed a house lighter, one shaped like the Eiffel tower. Jordan came to him and put the cigarette to her lips. He lit it and tossed the tower back onto the desk. Before she had a chance to turn away to leave, he gave her a quick one-armed hug.

“Thanks, Jordan. You’re a real pal.” Jay said that earnestly and he meant it. Her advice was sound, and before her car had left, he’d drafted up a note to be delivered onto Nick’s front step. _Dinner at seven._


End file.
